How Smriti Irani twisted a Journo’s statement and made it sound sexist

Recently, in an interview with Aaj Tak, Smriti Irani created a storm over a question by Aaj Tak’s political editor Ashok Singhal. I’m reproducing the statements verbatim here and link to the video is at the bottom of the post.

1) mujhe dekhte hue kaha – subtly insinuating that the journalist was staring at her or somehow looking at her in a lewd manner.

2) journo first states the issue of her qualifications, and with respect to that, questioned, on what basis was she made the HRD minister.

I saw many women on my Facebook timeline and Twitter timeline calling the journalists statement a sexist one, how is it so? Would this question be considered sexist if it were posed to a Male minister? Is it not okay to ask someone ki aap mein kya khoobi thi ki aapko Minister banaya? What are your credentials?

Of course, Smriti Irani made this is into a controversial statement, and successfully avoided the original question as to what are her credentials to be the HRD minister.

At the 2-day National Executive meet of the BJP on Sunday, Venkaiah Naidu said,”Modi is god’s gift for India. He is the messiah of the poor.” If that is true, then after what happened in Delhi and Bihar, it should be apparent that people are asking god if he/she has a return policy for gifts. People clearly don’t like this gift. Related